knout
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
noun
Etymology
Origin of knout
1710–20; < French < Russian knut, Old Russian < Old Norse knūtr knot
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The feat for which the National Committee commended him proved him to be a very knout and bastinado.
From Time Magazine Archive
Moscow's long-suffering moviegoers glowed vindictively: the managers of the city's neighborhood moviehouses were at last writhing under the official knout.
From Time Magazine Archive
The new, obnoxiously corporate-modeled, self-franchising Guggenheim may run on laptops, but what it really needs is an editorial pencil -- if not a knout.
From Time Magazine Archive
The fear of shame did more with them than the fear of the knout could do with the Russians.
From Dialogues of the Dead by Morley, Henry
It will be remembered Mr. Pott went to Mrs. Leo Hunter’s Fête in the character of a Russian with a knout in his hand.
From Pickwickian Studies by Fitzgerald, Percy Hethrington
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
